]]>Thursday’s newsmakers: Former Oiler Doug Weight in action against the Winnipeg Jets, sometime in the mid-1990s. Weight is retiring from the NHL just as Winnipeg appears set to re-enter the league.

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Thursday morning one of the best of the post-dynasty Oilers, Doug Weight, will announce his retirement from the NHL. Weight, now 40, wound down his playing career with the New York Islanders, two decades after it started just across the East River with the New York Rangers. By far the best and most productive years of Weight’s career, however, took place in Good Old Ourtown.

A second round draft choice in 1990, Weight joined the Rangers with much fanfare less than a year later, having ripped up the CCHA (75 points in 42 games with Lake Superior State) and the World Juniors (19 points in 7 games with USA). He made his debut in the ’91 playoffs, and after the briefest of auditions in the AHL the next season (17 points in 9 games with Binghampton) he found himself in the bigs for good.

The Rangers were, of course, the Rangers, so they were more interested in famous old guys from other teams than their own young talent. Despite a promising start to Weight’s career, he didn’t win either the Hart or the Ross trophy in either of his first two years, and patience has always been in short supply in Manhatten. Many times victimized in previous deals with New York, Oilers GM Glen Sather (ironically, in retrospect) pounced on trade deadline of 1993. The Rangers, ever trying to build an instant Cup winner – which in fairness, they did – traded their rising young star to the Oilers in exchange for proven winner Esa Tikkanen, a classic case of a trade that helped both teams. A year later the two teams completed a similar deal, Craig MacTavish for Todd Marchant, and New York had the final piece to their Stanley Cup-winning puzzle; the Oilers, meanwhile, were set down the middle for the next decade.

Weight made an immediate impact in Edmonton. clicking for 74 points in his first full season despite playing with plumbers Steven Rice and Scott Pearson on a line famously dubbed Doug and the Slugs, after a popular rock band of the day. That would be the first of seven times he led the club in scoring in his eight full years here. He scored 70+ points in six of those seasons, falling short of that number only during the lockout-shortened 1995-95 season and again in 1998-99 when he suffered his one serious injury during his Edmonton years, missing half the season. He topped out at 104 points in 1995-96, when he finished 11th in NHL scoring, two points ahead of Wayne Gretzky. Five years later he finally squeezed into the top ten, finishing eighth with 90 points as the Dead Puck Era deepened. Primarily a playmaker, Weight made the NHL’s top five in assists on three different occasions during his time as an Oiler. An outstanding powerplay set-up man from the right-wing hashmarks, Weight was at his most dangerous when he remembered to shoot the puck himself on occasion to keep the goalies honest.

Over his years in Edmonton, Weight gradually became a more well-rounded player and team leader. His last five years “The Little Team That Could” made the playoffs each year, with Weight himself being a core player throughout those years along with Marchant, Ryan Smyth, and Mike Grier. A high moment for Weight was assisting on Marchant’s overtime winner in Game Seven against the Dallas Stars in 1997.

Weight’s play on the winning sequence can be seen around the 1:15 mark, but hey, Oiler fans, take the full two minutes to watch this video. You know you want to.

After the departure of Kelly Buchberger in 1999, Weight was a natural choice to become captain of the Oilers, and to this day he remains the only non-Canadian among the 16 men who have served in that capacity in the franchise’s 39-year history.

Weight was regarded as a tough competitor, mostly a clean player who came close to crossing the line with a couple of tough hits on Richard Matvichuk (during one of the annual Oilers-Stars series), and years later as an Islander, for a crushing blow on Brandon Sutter. For sure he was a player who could look after himself, something which was never more evident than in this sequence involving San Jose’s Bryan Marchment in Weight’s final year as an Oiler. Unshown is the dirty knee-on-knee check Marchment landed that triggered Weight’s somewhat over-the-top response, but suffice to say Doug wasn’t standing on the sidelines expecting Georges Laraque to do his dirty work. Believe it or not, the officials who missed Marchment’s original vicious hit, honoured Weight’s sweater number by giving him 39 minutes in penalties for this brief sequence – two minors, a major, and three misconducts – while the thugly Marchment got 0. San Jose got a 9-minute powerplay and as far as this Oiler fan was concerned, it was worth every second of it. (To this day I remain enraged by the call, but that’s another matter entirely.)

Alas, Weight’s career in Edmonton was to wind down after that 2000-01 season. His contract had one more year to run, and the Oilers never had a prayer of re-signing him in those last, pre-salary cap days. Reluctantly, Oilers GM Kevin Lowe traded his former teammate to St. Louis for a package that included two solid NHLers in Jochen Hecht and Marty Reasoner, guys who remain in the league to this day, a decade later. Reasoner was a solid Oiler for a few years while Hecht was soon flipped for a pair of draft choices that became Jeff Deslauriers and Jarret Stoll, with Stoll later being a key piece in the deal that acquired Lubo Visnovsky, who was in turn swapped for Ryan Whitney. Thus a dashed line can be drawn from Tikkanen-Weight-Hecht-Stoll-Visnovsky-Whitney that includes six excellent Oilers over a span of a quarter of a century. Good draft pick, that Esa Tikkanen, still paying dividends.

Weight signed a top-dollar extension in St. Louis, continuing a long tradition of Oilers earning big money stateside after establishing their reputations in Edmonton. The Oilers, meawhile, would sorely miss him, finishing outside the playoffs in 2001-02 despite having the second-best goals-against average in hockey; minus their offensive leader, the club’s Goals For crashed by half a goal a game, and the big goal never seemed to be there when it was needed most. In fact, the post-Weight Oilers have made the playoffs just twice in the ten years since he left River City. They are still looking for a high-scoring pivot to replace him; since he left Edmonton a winger has led the team in scoring every single year, and nobody has scored as many as 80 points.

Weight, meanwhile, would eventually move on to Carolina, Anaheim and Long Island, ultimately playing out the string as captain of the Islanders during three injury-plagued seasons. A personal highlight was winning the Stanley Cup as a Hurricane, breaking the hearts of his former fans in Edmonton in the process. Weight himself did not finish that series, as he was knocked out of action in Game Five on a sandwich check by the notorious Chris Pronger and the nefarious Raffi Torres. (I can say that now, right?) Nonetheless, it was a bittersweet moment to see Weight (and fellow ex-Oiler Ray Whitney) lift the grail on that difficult day in June 2006.

Doug also won a World Cup with Team USA in 1996, and a silver medal at the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002 during his decorated career.

Nonetheless, there is little debate that his best hockey days came as a member of the Edmonton Oilers. Some might argue that Doug was the very best of the post-dynasty Oilers, and have the numbers declaring him as the franchise scoring leader since 1990 to back that up. Ryan Smyth would get a lot of votes if it came to that, and Chris Pronger would get some consideration for that one transcendent season, but Dougie Weight is certainly on the short list. He would wind up his career with 1033 points in 1238 games, connecting for well over half of those points as an Oiler, in less than half of the games.

GP

G

A

P

G/G

A/G

P/G

Oilers

588

157

420

577

0.27

0.71

0.98

Others

650

121

335

456

0.19

0.52

0.70

Total

1238

278

755

1033

0.22

0.61

0.83

As a thousand-point scorer during a mostly low-scoring era, Doug Weight will earn serious consideration for membership in the Hockey Hall of Fame once he becomes eligible three years hence. While it’s debatable whether he will eventually garner sufficient support for election, there is little doubt that if he makes the Hall he’ll go in wearing an Oilers logo.

Farewell to a great Oiler. Happy retirement, Doug!

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Doug Weight’s retirement announcement will be covered live at edmontonoilers.com at 09:00 Thursday morning.

One of Weight’s finest hours as an Oiler came in Game Three of the 2000 playoffs against (who else?) Dallas Stars, when he notched a hat trick in his first home playoff game as Oilers’ captain. This three-minute highlight reel of that game gives a nice overview of Weight and his Oilers, affectionately known as The Little Team That Could.